


So Many Chances

by Argyle



Category: Dead Like Me
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-07-18
Updated: 2007-07-18
Packaged: 2018-01-02 05:19:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,359
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1052967
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Argyle/pseuds/Argyle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It takes choreography to pull off variety.</p>
            </blockquote>





	So Many Chances

Rube glanced up from his crossword. “Is there something wrong with your muffin?”  
  
“No.”  
  
“Then why dishonor the baker’s hard work by decimating it?”  
  
George brushed the tips of her fingers together, scattering crumbs on the tabletop, and shrugged. “I wasn’t decimating it,” she mumbled. “And who’s to say it’s _hard_ work? _I’ve_ made muffins. I once spent all day on it, mixing the flour and shit. They didn’t turn out right, and I threw out the whole batch before anyone got home, but it wasn’t hard.”  
  
“Do you know what’s not up for debate?”  
  
“Hmm?”  
  
“The difficulty of watching you decimate that thing.”  
  
George didn’t reply. With utmost care, she pulled a sunflower seed from beneath the wrapper. Then she set it to the side of her plate, where it joined a traffic jam of fellow seeds that had been laid atop the brown glaze borders. It was not calculated. Rube knew she was merely keeping her hands busy. He also knew something was bothering her.  
  
“I thought you liked sunflower seeds,” he said, casually.  
  
“I did.”  
  
“And now you don’t?”  
  
George met his eye. “I just like a little assortment. A surprise from time to time. Is that too much to ask? Every day it’s waffles or eggs or oatmeal or cherry pie. Another morning at Der Waffle Haus.” She didn’t have to continue for him to hail down her train of thought.  
  
“I try to save the cherry pie until after three.”  
  
“That’s not the _point_.”  
  
Rube waited.  
  
“The point is-- Um. Variety.”  
  
“Ah.” Rube took a long sip of coffee. “There is nothing so exhausting as a person’s struggle against an abstraction. And besides, you didn’t have to order the sunflower seed muffin.”  
  
George hid a smile behind the rim of her juice glass. “They were out of blueberry.”  
  
“Tell me something: have you ever had mixed nuts?”  
  
“You mean real ones, or the joke kind where the paper snake pops out?”  
  
“I’m glad you asked that. It shows you’re paying attention to your environment in all its myriad contradictions,” Rube drawled. “Of course I meant the kind with the paper snake.”  
  
“Really?”  
  
“No.”  
  
“Then what--”  
  
“You’re a rare breed, peanut. Has anyone ever told you that? To go back on my previous statement, I feel obligated to observe that you have the innate ability to _listen_ without _thought_. I imagine there’s practical application for that sort of thing somewhere in the universe, but that somewhere is not here.”  
  
“Is this going to mean something to me later on? Because it sure as fuck doesn’t now.”  
  
Rube blinked. Without another word, he rustled his newspaper, drew a thin black line over the prompt for 26 Down, and filled in the tiny boxes: HYPOTHERMIA.  
  
A moment passed. And then: “Do you mean, like, the ones in a can?”  
  
“The housing of the nuts is immaterial. It only matters that they’re mixed.”  
  
“Yeah,” George said, and took a bite from her muffin’s cratered cap. “I never liked them. You’d get stuck with a lot of peanuts, but not enough cashews.”  
  
“Maybe someone got to them before you.”  
  
“No. It wasn’t that. I, um... My dad used to eat everything but the filberts. Mom would bring home a can, and within ten minutes dad would be there, stuffing his cheeks. We’d find it on the counter in the evening, a few lousy filberts on the bottom. She eventually stopped giving him the chance to make it up to her and quit buying them.”  
  
“She wanted the cashews?”  
  
“She just hated filberts.”  
  
“It’s always the little things.” Rube nodded. “I’m more interested in the whole experience,” he said, placidly folding his hands together. “You reach in, take a good handful, and then pop them in all at once. Chew for a moment. Let the salt stick to your molars. You do get a lot of peanuts. But when they mix with the brazils and the walnuts and the almonds, you’re left with a surprisingly pleasing consistency.”  
  
“So?”  
  
“What I’m getting at is that it takes choreography to pull off variety. Each element must line up and do its part before anything even close to spontaneity can be achieved.”  
  
“It’s not like I haven’t put effort into anything before,” George sniffed, and picked out another sunflower seed.  
  


\----------------------

  
  
Rube never had much of a green thumb, but he still knew enough to appreciate the faint sense of wonderment which lapped at his thoughts whenever he drove through forests or farm country. A prickle rose at the back of his neck, and his hands tightened their grip on the steering wheel: here the earth rose up to greet him, each leaf and bough swaying in the noontime breeze. And here the earth surrounded him on all sides.  
  
He took a deep breath.  
  
The rickety Ford _rat-tat-tatted_ down the frontage lane.  
  
Rosie never asked him how far they had yet to drive. Even on the earliest and most unanticipated of their daytrips, she seemed to realize they would simply keep at it until there was no more to see.  
  
One day, it was the Pine Barrens; they strolled to the tempo of crunching needles beneath their heels. Another, they went down to Atlantic City, where they’d waited hours for the horse and rider to ascend the high platform, munching down taffy and caramel corn until drum roll and fanfare summoned the plunge. The sight of the fall made Rube’s stomach clench, but somehow he’d supposed the splash would be bigger.  
  
The horse didn’t even flinch.  
  
After that, they agreed to stick to the basics. Today they perused fruit stands which neighbored the long orchards in the heart of the state, ate ripe strawberries by the side of the road, and bought a bushel of apples to bring back to Lucy. Rosie hoped her mother would make crumb cobbler, and said so; Rube hoped she would too.  
  
Now it was late in the afternoon, and scarlet shadows nipped at the verge. For miles, they scarcely passed another traveler; orchards gave way to woodland, woodland gave way to cornfields. Occasionally, ailing farmhouses popped up between the vast tracts of land, their facades pale against the chestnut trees which skirted them.  
  
Rosie’s hands were flung out above her head to better grasp the wind between her tiny fingers. She caught sight of the sunflower field before Rube did, but only just so, and by the time they reached it, they both felt the very same eagerness to stand in its midst.  
  
There were thousands of flowers, lined up not like soldiers, but rather pilgrims before an altar. Each gold-crested head was held high, worshipful, entreating. Rube lifted Rosie onto his shoulders, and she reached out to touch the thin, silken petals.  
  
In the dying light, it appeared the field stretched on forever.  
  
Rosie wondered why they couldn’t grow sunflowers of their own; Rube didn’t have an answer for her, or at least not one he could present and still look her in the eye.  
  
But his daughter was persistent. She told Lucy of their find, and Lucy, as understanding as ever, explained that the season was too far gone. Any seeds planted at such a late hour would not be fully grown by the first frost. Why not give them an opportunity to truly flourish?  
  
And so it was agreed that they would wait until the following year. Rosie plotted a bed for them in their small yard.  
  
Rube never had much of a green thumb, but he knew enough to find his way back to the sunflower field. The moon shone coolly above. He lopped five heads from their stalks, and set them carefully down in the truck bed.  
  
The next day, Rosie picked out half a dozen seeds, placed them in an envelope, and explained that she would keep them safe until the perfect day for planting. The rest dried on the porch, and Lucy baked them beside her crumb cobbler.  
  


*   *   *

  
  
There was no following year.  
  
Rube told Lucy this: a man gets only so many chances. He asked her why she wouldn’t want to provide their daughter with a little diversity. A bit of perspective.  
  
They packed their house in November; by December, they settled in Seattle. The rain seeped through the windowpanes, dripped down the ceiling. There weren’t enough pots to collect it all, so great and long was the gloom about them.  
  
Rosie’s fingertips took on the texture of raisins as she reached over the balustrade.  
  
By February, Rube’s business deal fell through. By March, he was dead.  
  


\----------------------

  
  
Penny shook her head, smiled, and glanced up from Rube’s freshly tilled plot. “Soil’s too sandy. They’ll never grow.”  
  
“Were you a gardener before you died?” Rube asked, dragging a bandanna across his brow. Then he wiped his hands on his trousers. “Were you a botanist?”  
  
“You know I wasn’t.”  
  
“Well, in that case, I suggest you give them a chance.”  
  
Penny’s smile widened. “You got it, Rube. You’re the boss,” she said. “But you know, a place downtown just opened up. One of those big old Victorian numbers. I told Sam to lay off until I talked to you.”  
  
Rube arched a brow. “And to whom did it belong?”  
  
“How the fuck should I know? I only _met_ her once. You’ll never guess what her lights were.”  
  
“Hansom cab.”  
  
“Impressive,” Penny laughed. And then, a bit more caustically, “Were you a psychic before you died?”  
  
Rube let it slide. “Tell Sam I’m not in the market.”  
  
“It has a rose garden. And herbs: basil, oregano, lemongrass. The whole package.”  
  
“Well,” said Rube. “I’m sure he will find a way to turn a profit.”  
  
Penny sighed, but then caught herself. Rube knew the question which hung upon her lips: why _this_ place? She’d called it a dump, once, not long after their first meeting. Now she merely kept pace with terms like “rundown” and “handyman’s special.”  
  
But even if he was beyond admitting it to himself, it reminded him of the old flat in Jersey. He left it at this: “I’m settled.”  
  
Without another word, she turned away, latched the gate behind her, and was gone. Rube waited several moments before resuming his work. He went back through the soil with sensitivity and care, dislodged the occasional stone, and eventually planted the sunflower seeds: the glue on the envelope had faded, as had the crayon penmanship which graced its front, but they were safe.  
  
He whispered a soft assurance, though not to himself: “It’s only a matter of time.”  
  


\----------------------

  
  
“Rube, I want to thank you for everything you’ve done for me since, well, _ever_ ,” Mason said, sliding into the booth. He proffered his hand. “It means a lot to me.”  
  
“Woolworth’s having a sale on novelties?” Rube drawled, his gaze momentarily flickering up from his crossword.  
  
“I don’t follow you.”  
  
“I can see the hand buzzer beneath your glove, Mason.”  
  
Mason grimaced. “Impressive,” he said. “I mean, Daisy guessed it, as did George. But when I tested it out on the wall, I swear I thought my teeth were going to fall out.”  
  
Rube arched a brow.  
  
“Ah. My reap, one Archie Simms of 42 Wolsteader Loop, owned a joke shop.” Mason paused to remove the buzzer: one finger at a time, the glove came off, revealing the glinting metal discus. “You’ll never guess how he died.”  
  
“If it had anything to do with a banana peel, I’ll be very disappointed.”  
  
“Nah. Hit by a lorry. Sorry way to go.”  
  
“I’m less disappointed.”  
  
Mason shrugged. Then he swung his knapsack onto the table and began emptying out its contents. “Bloody goldmine,” he murmured. “Black power snakes, cherry poppers, fake eyeglasses, fake earrings, fake thermometer. Fake dog shite.” This he carefully placed on the floor beside the booth.  
  
“Quite an assortment.”  
  
“Wasn’t easy,” Mason said. “You wouldn’t believe how many boxes I had to crack open to find this stuff. But it was worth it. Look at this!” He flipped through a stack of Funny Munny. “And, um. Disappearing, _reappearing_ ink. Spy camera. Ooh, you’ll like this one...”  
  
“Mason?”  
  
“Yes, Rube?”  
  
“Have you considered the irony inherent in this round of petty larceny?”  
  
“Um. Does it have something to do with pulling a rabbit out of one’s hat?” Mason asked. But when Rube failed to reply, he ventured, “Old Simmsy had stuff like that, you know. Couldn’t fit it all into my bag.” And then, proffering a can marked MIXED NUTS, “Tried this one on Georgie earlier. Said she didn’t like filberts. Fancy a taste?”  
  
Rube rubbed the tender flesh between his eyes.  
  
“What?”  
  
“Are you going to order?”  
  
“Why?”  
  
“Custom dictates that if a person takes a seat in a dining establishment, he must order.”  
  
Mason pursed his lips. Then he gestured to Kiffany, who stood at the ready by the cash register. When she approached the table, he cried, “Watch your step!”  
  
Without pause, Kiffany swung down to look at the plastic pile, and then picked it up between thumb and forefinger, tossing it onto Mason’s lap. “Someone could trip,” she said.  
  
“Kid thinks he’s a comedian,” Rube explained. “I keep telling him he should hit the vaudeville circuit.”  
  
Kiffany smiled, her eyes glinting in the muted overhead light. “You should,” she said. “I’m sure you’d make a killing.”  
  
“Right.” Mason grimaced. “Really looks quite real, though. Don’t you think?”  
  
“Real enough to trip on. Now, what can I get for you?”  
  
“Do you have any bear claws?”  
  
“Just sold the last one.”  
  
“What about cherry pie?”  
  
Kiffany shook her head. “Fresh out.”  
  
“Only a muffin, then,” Mason said, and fumbled with a package of wax teeth. Very carefully, he slipped them on. “With marmalade.”  
  
“Sunflower seed, apple, or blueberry?”  
  
Mason gave a toothy grin. “Prince Charles,” he said. “What do you think?”  
  
“I think you should order,” Rube admonished over the rim of his coffee mug, “and don’t be such an ass.”  
  
“Sorry, I wasn’t listening. Er. Surprise me.”  
  
“And anything else for you?” Kiffany asked, and turned to Rube.  
  
“Just the check.”  
  
With that, she moved off towards the kitchen. Rube returned to his crossword, inking QUICKSAND onto the newsprint.


End file.
